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<b>Based on Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name,
Guns, Germs and Steel traces humanity's journey over the last 13,000
years from the dawn of farming at the end of the last Ice Age to the
realities of life in the twenty-first century.</b>

Inspired by a question put to him on the island of Papua New Guinea more
than thirty years ago, Diamond embarks on a world-wide quest to
understand the roots of global inequality.

<b> Why were Europeans the ones to conquer so much of our planet?
Why didn't the Chinese, or the Inca, become masters of the globe instead?
Why did cities first evolve in the Middle East?
Why did farming never emerge in Australia?
And why are the tropics now the capital of global poverty?
Diamond answers also one question I´ve wondered , why Incas´fell with european diseases and not the other way around?</b>

As he peeled back the layers of history to uncover fundamental,
environmental factors shaping the destiny of humanity, Diamond found
both his theories and his own endurance tested.

The three one-hour programs were filmed across four continents on High
Definition digital video, and combinied ambitious dramatic
reconstruction with moving documentary footage and computer animation.
They also include contributions from Diamond himself and a wealth of
international historians, archeologists and scientists.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is a thrilling ride through the elemental
forces which have shaped our world and which continue to shape our future.

Part 1: Out Of Eden
Jared Diamond´s journey of discovery began on the island of Papua New
Guinea. There, in 1974, a local named Yali asked Diamond a deceptively
simple question:
?Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo, but we black
people had little cargo of our own??

Diamond realized that Yali´s question penetrated the heart of a great
mystery of human history -- the roots of global inequality.

To examine the reasons for European success, Jared realized he had to
peel back the layers of history and begin his search at a time of
equality a time when all the peoples of the world lived in exactly the
same way.

Time of Equality

At the end of the last Ice Age, around thirteen thousand years ago,
people on all continents followed a so-called Stone Age way of life ?
they survived by hunting and gathering the available wild animals and
plants. When resources were plentiful, this was a productive way of life.

Around eleven and a half thousand years ago, the world's climate
suddenly changed. In an aftershock of the Ice Age, temperatures
plummeted and global rainfall reduced. The impact of this catastrophe
was felt most keenly in an area known as the Fertile Crescent, in the
modern Middle East. Here, hunter-gathers had thrived on some of the most
useful and plentiful flora and fauna in the world. They had even
developed semi-permanent settlements to exploit the resources around them.

Part 2: Conquest
On November 15th 1532, 168 Spanish conquistadors arrive in the holy
city of Cajamarca, at the heart of the Inca Empire, in Peru.

They are exhausted, outnumbered and terrified ? ahead of them are camped
80,000 Inca troops and the entourage of the Emperor himself.

Yet, within just 24 hours, more than 7,000 Inca warriors lie
slaughtered; the Emperor languishes in chains; and the victorious
Europeans begin a reign of colonial terror which will sweep through the
entire American continent.*

Why was the balance of power so unequal between the Old World, and the New?

On the surface, the Spaniards had discovered a foreign empire remarkably
similar to their own. The Inca had built an advanced, politically
sophisticated, civilization on the foundations of successful
agriculture. They had ruthlessly conquered their neighbors in South
America, and by 1532 governed a vast territory, the length and breadth
of the Andes.

But as Jared discovers, the Inca lacked some critical agents of conquest.

Part 3: Into The Tropics
So far, Jared Diamond has demonstrated how geography favoured one group
of people ? Europeans ? endowing them with agents of conquest ahead of
their rivals around the world. Guns, germs and steel allowed Europeans
to colonize vast tracts of the globe ? but what happened when this
all-conquering package arrived in Africa, the birthplace of humanity?

Can Jared Diamond's theories explain how a continent so rich in natural
resources, could have ended up the poorest continent on earth?

Guns Germs and Steel triumph again...?

Jared's journey begins on a steam train in Cape Town, designed to carry
civilization to the heart of the so-called 'dark continent'. In the
Cape, Jared discovers a landscape and way of life that feels very
European ? farms growing cattle, wheat, grapes and barley; settler
communities dating back over three hundred years.

Enter the Tropics

As the settlers traveled further north, life suddenly became a lot
harder. The foundations of their success, their crops and animals,
refused to grow. They were forced to barter for food from their
neighbours. And they started to fall ill with a mysterious and
terrifying fever. It was a complete reversal of the usual pattern of
European conquest.